One of the most important issues impeding the widespread distribution of digital works (i.e. documents or other content in forms readable by computers), via electronic means, and the Internet in particular, is the current lack of ability to enforce the intellectual property rights of content owners during the distribution and use of digital works. Efforts to resolve this problem have been termed “Intellectual Property Rights Management” (“IPRM”), “Digital Property Rights Management” (“DPRM”), “Intellectual Property Management” (“IPM”), “Rights Management” (“RM”), and “Electronic Copyright Management” (“ECM”), collectively referred to as “Digital Rights Management (DRM)” herein. There are a number of issues to be considered in effecting a DRM System. For example, authentication, authorization, accounting, payment and financial clearing, rights specification, rights verification, rights enforcement, and document protection issues should be addressed. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,530,235, 5,634,012, 5,715,403, 5,638,443, and 5,629,980 disclose DRM systems addressing these issues.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,634,012, discloses a system for controlling the distribution of digital documents. Each rendering device has a repository associated therewith. A predetermined set of usage transaction steps define a protocol used by the repositories for enforcing usage rights associated with a document. Usage rights persist with the document content. The usage rights can permit various manners of use of the content such as, viewing only, use once, distribution, and the like. Usage rights can be contingent on payment or satisfaction of other conditions and the variables.
As noted above, it is known to control the use and distribution of digital content, i.e. documents or other information that can be rendered by a computer or other device, using usage rights and conditions. This permits digital content to be distributed in a flexible manner while protecting the rights of the content owner and permitting the content owner, and others adding value to transactions, to produce a revenue stream from the distribution. However, tangible items, such as goods and services. Cannot be distributed in such a flexible manner.
It is known to utilize auctions, reverse auctions, aggregation mechanisms, and other distribution models to distribute goods and services in a more flexible manner. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,897,620 discloses a system for matching a destination and unspecified-time with an airline flight to permit airlines to fill otherwise empty seats. However, the system disclosed in this patent merely matches a traveler with an airline ticket and does not permit the flexible distribution of various services and goods.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,041,308 discloses a system for encouraging buyers to submit Conditional Purchase Offers (CPOs) to a CPO management system for a desired product. The CPO management system processes each received CPO to determine whether one or more sellers are willing to accept a given CPO. While this system can be applied to more diverse goods and services, the system also is merely a mechanism for matching buyers to sellers.
Notwithstanding new business models and approaches, such as those discussed above, to selling various goods and services, the sale and exchange of goods and services still relies on legal theories and relationships for enforcing behavior. For example, the parties to each transaction ultimately have to agree, either directly or indirectly, on the parameters for delivering the goods and services, such as price, quantities, the item identity and the like. Accordingly, trade of goods and services is restrained by legal and relationship issues.